Wilko's £6m claim against Nottingham City Council over tram works in Beeston

HARDWARE giant Wilkinson is demanding around £6 million from the city council after it was forced to close a store to make way for the tram extension.

The national chain's shop in The Square, Beeston, closed following a compulsory purchase order made by Nottingham City Council as part of phase two of the tram project.

Now the company, which has more than 300 stores and has its headquarters in Worksop, has formally submitted documents to the Lands Tribunal in London lodging a claim for losses suffered as a result of having to close the store.

The Post understands that the figure is in the region of £6 million, although no date has been set for a hearing.

The council confirmed it was in discussions with Wilkinson over the claim and said it had already paid an undisclosed amount to the firm.

It is believed the losses Wilkinson is claiming for include the cost of closing the store, disposing of stock and making redundancy payments to staff.

A spokesman from Wilkinson said: "The Beeston store was highly successful and we loved being there.

"We did everything we could to stay in Beeston.

"We are not suing but – in accordance with our statutory rights and in common with any residents or businesses who suffer loss as a result of a compulsory purchase order – we are now in a position to lodge a claim for total losses suffered as a result of our loss of business.

"It should be remembered that such compensation costs are usually budgeted for in the total project costs at the start of any major project of this kind."

The company officially vacated the store on April 23, 2012, and since then it has been half demolished – although the frontage still remains.

When the store's closure was announced, a petition of more than 3,500 signatures was submitted by Beeston resident Matt Goold to try to save it.

At the time local businesses said it had left a gap in the town centre, but other high street names have since come forward including Costa Coffee and PureGym – who will open in the area by the end of the year.

Beeston Business Improvement District manager Stephanie Wilkinson said: "When Wilkinson left it was clearly not great news for the town centre, but we have since seen Costa Coffee announce that they will join us in The Square.

"Commitment from that sort of major high street brand shows that we continue to have a strong offering here in Beeston."

Tram project director Chris Deas, from Nottingham City Council, said: "We have already made substantial advance compensation payments to Wilkinson and are continuing discussions about the final amount, which is usual in cases such as this."

Wilkinsons have got a cheek. They closed the store down in 2012 and it was only 2 months ago they started demolishing it. Why weren't they running the business until then (almost 18months). They're after a quick buck and I support them but I don'y like having to go to Long Eaton to their shop there.

Anyway, alabarra, check this; you bemoan the loss of historic things in Nottingham, "...they have ridden roughshod over our historic city wiping out anything of value." But aren't trams historic? There's a museum at Crich apparently. And some of them are old Nottingham trams dude.

►●►●►●►▶ my buddy's step-aunt makes *82/hr on the computer. She has been out of work for 10 months but last month her paycheck was *18010 just working on the computer for a few hours. read this…. ►●►●►●►▶
w­­­­­­­­­w­­­­­­­w.d­­­­­u­­­­b­3­­­­­­­­0.C­­­­­­­o­­­­­­m

Sick of reading / hearing about it. The tram system was never going to work and like the last one 100 years ago, it will always make a loss. Trains in the street is the whim of those who are not old enough to remember trams and trolley buses or too blind to see or learn from history. They see it all as some kind of whimsical nostalgia. Maybe they think that if they get all the cars off the road, people will be forced to use the trams. 100 years ago, no-one had cars and the trams were packed to bursting, but the system still proved too expensive to run and continually suffered serious losses.
I saw on the news, last week, where a city (cannot recall which) is putting their investment into electric buses. FAR, FAR, FAR more sensible. no wires, no railway lines in the road, no digging up roads for years at a time, no putting firms out business, no having to shutdown the transport because of a minor incident. Best of all no disproportionate unrecoverable investment , for what is a total headache of an inconvenience.
Incidentally, the last time I was by the tram lines at Basford crossing, there were three trams passing. ALL in view at once, only a hundred or so yards apart. ALL empty.
Nottingham has had major failings in respect of planning, for decades. Those in planning positions in this city, appear to have possesed neither qualifications nor flair. They have ridden roughshod over our historic city wiping out anything of value. We all know that we have done nothing to stop them.
And they know that if a referendum was taken, many, if not most inappropriate developments and destruction of the city's history would not have taken place. Even the architect behind the Broad Marsh development decades ago, admitted that he regretted deeply what he had done.